rTorrent is a quick and efficient BitTorrent client that uses the libtorrent library. It is written in C++ and uses the ncurses programming library, which means it uses a text user interface. When combined with GNU Screen and Secure Shell, it becomes a convenient remote Bitorrent client.

Create and manage files

The directory option will determine where your torrent data will be saved. Be sure to enter the absolute path, as rTorrent may not follow relative paths:

directory = /home/[user]/torrents/

The session option allows rTorrent to save the progess of your torrents. It is recommended to create a directory called .session (e.g. $ mkdir ~/.session).

session = /home/[user]/.session/

The schedule option has rTorrent watch a particular directory for new torrent files. Saving a torrent file to this directory will automatically start the download. Remember to create the directory that will be watched (e.g. $ mkdir ~/watch). Also, be careful when using this option as rTorrent will move the torrent file to your session folder and rename it to its hash value.

The following schedule option is intended to stop rTorrent from downloading data when disk space is low.

schedule = low_diskspace,5,60,close_low_diskspace=100M

Port configuration

The port_range option sets which port(s) to use for listening. It is recommended to use a port that is higher than 49152 (see: List of port numbers). Although, rTorrent allows a range of ports, a single port is recommended.

Additional settings

The check_hash option executes a hash check when a torrent download is complete or rTorrent is started. When starting, it checks for errors in your completed files.

check_hash = yes

The encryption option enables or disables encryption. It is very important to enable this option, not only for yourself, but also for your peers in the torrent swarm. Some users need to obscure their bandwidth usage from their ISP. And it does not hurt to enable it even if you do not need the added security.

Key bindings

Cmd

Action

Ctrl-q

Quit application

Left

Returns to the previous screen

Right

Goes to the next screen

Backspace

Adds the specified *.torrent

rTorrent relies exclusively on keyboard shortcuts for user input. A quick reference is available in the table on the right. A complete guide is available on the rTorrent wiki (see: rTorrent User Guide).

Note: Striking Template:Keypress twice in quick succession will make rTorrent shutdown without waiting to send a stop announce to the connected trackers.

Redundant mapping

Template:Keypress is often used for terminal control to stop screen output while Template:Keypress is used to start it. These mappings may interfere with rTorrent. Check to see if these terminal options are bound to a mapping:

Creating a Template:Filename file with relative paths in a user's home directory will break the rc.d script. To run multiple instances of rTorrent with relative paths under different users replace line 9 in Template:Filename with the following:

Pre-allocation

The rTorrent package in the community repository lacks pre-allocation. Compiling rTorrent with pre-allocation allows files to be allocated before downloading the torrent. The major benefit is that it limits and avoids fragmentation of the filesystem. However, this introduces a delay during the pre-allocation if the filesystem does not support the fallocate syscall natively.

Therefore this switch is recommended for xfs, ext4 and btrfs filesystems, which have native fallocate syscall support. They will see no delay during preallocation and no fragmented filesystem. Pre-allocation on others filesystems will cause a delay but will not fragment the files.

To make pre-allocation available, recompile libtorrent from the ABS tree with the following new switch:

Manage completed files

Note: Currently, this part requires either the svn version of rtorrent/libtorrent or having applied the patch to 0.8.6 that adds 'equal'.

Note: If you're having trouble with this tip, it's probably easier to follow this

It is possible to have rtorrent sort completed torrent data to specific folders based on which 'watch' folder you drop the *.torrent into while continuing to seed. Many examples show how to do this with torrents downloaded by rtorrent. The problem is when you try to drop in 100% done torrent data and then have rtorrent check the data and resume. It will not be sorted.

As a solution, use the following example in your ~/.rtorrent.rc.
Make sure to change the paths.

notify_me is the command id, which may be used by other commands, it can be just about anything you like, so long as it is unique.

execute= is the rtorrent command, in this case to execute a shell command.

/path/to/mail.sh is the name of our script (or whatever command you want to execute) followed by a comma separated list of all the switches/arguments to be passed.

$d.get_name= 'd' is an alias to whatever download triggered the command, get_name is a function which returns the name of our download, and the '$' tells rTorrent to replace the command with its output before it calls execute.

The end result? When that torrent, 'All Live Nudibranches', that we started before leaving for work finishes, we will be texted:

All Live Nudibranches: Done

Displaying active torrents

The rtorrent doesn't list the active tab properly by default, add this line to your .rtorrent.rc to show only active torrents

See also

rTorrent Community Wiki - A public place for information on rTorrent and any project related to rTorrent, regarding setup, configuration, operations, and development.

PyroScope - A collection of command line tools for rTorrent. It provides commands for creating and modifying torrent files, moving data on completion without having multiple watch folders, and mass-controlling download items via rTorrent's XML-RPC interface: searching, start/stop, deleting items with or without their data, etc. It also offers a documented Python API.